Page 109 of Honeysuckle
“Will you kiss me?” I asked him. He blinked softly, almost as if he had missed it. “It’s necessary,” I added when he didn’t move.
“Yeah, Tuck,” Josh said, slipping from the bed and settling so our knees were touching the floor. “I’ll kiss you.”
I watched as he breathed in, pushing away every single nightmare and letting me surround him as our lips pressed together. I kept my hands back, hovering but never touching as the thudding of our combined heartbeat grew louder with every shared breath.
Josh’s lips were soft, pillowy against mine and for a split second, just like every time before, it was just us. The way his hair tickled my forehead and the smell of his body wash filled my nose. My fingers itched for contact, and despite the way my body fought against it, I tensed as he lifted his hand and brushed into my hair. The curls tangled in his grip as he twisted to keep himself from losing control.
Everything about Joshua Logan had a dizzying effect that I couldn’t shake.
He cleared his throat as he pulled away to look at me. “Feel better?” He asked me.
“I like that,” I said gently, and raised my hand to hover over his as he untangled his fingers from my hair. “Feels good.”
“You like having your hair pulled?” Josh chuckled, the feeling less overwhelming than every second of the conversation we had just had. It felt almost silly to be discussing my turn-ons.
“I guess so.” I opened my eyes and sighed, still so out of breath but now for a different reason.
“You never answered me earlier. Why were you out of breath?” Josh asked me, falling back against the bed frame, his legs stretching out around mine.
“I ran here,” I said.
I could hear the word roll off his tongue, ‘dramatic.’
“Where did you run from?” Josh scowled at me.
“Delta.” I shrugged, drinking Josh in, his lips were red from our kiss and his pupils were massive.
“You ran all the way up that hill to tell me that?” He scoffed.
“I did.”
“That’s a steep hill.”
“It is.”
“That’s your most impressive hissy fit to date,” Josh teased and offered me a small smile.
“Why aren’t you at Delta, anyway?” I asked. “Would have made this all a lot less sweaty if I didn’t have to go for a jog,” I slid back on the floor and stripped from the damp sweater and shirt. It stuck to my skin and made me feel suffocated.
Josh traced his eyes up from the floor as I stood, the soft expanse of my stomach hardened only with each breath I took. I turned away from him and shoved my hand into the closet, tossing the dirty fabric in the bin and grabbing a clean shirt.
“Walking into Delta is a death sentence, Tuck,” Josh said as I pulled it over my head.
“How?” I asked.
Josh scowled. “You’re handsome, but sometimes you’re an idiot. They don’t want me there, they still see the enemy,” he said, running his hands through his hair just to give them something to do.
“Because you act like you’re the enemy. You tell them constantly how much you don’t want to be here,” I reminded him.
“Well, it’s true,” he said.
I walked over to Josh and squatted down on the balls of my feet. “If you want the guys to see you as a teammate, you need to start acting like one.”
“By attending frat parties?” Josh scoffed. "No.”
“Is it a recovery thing? If it is, say it and I’ll drop it,” I asked, my fingers digging into the fabric of my jeans. I was resisting the urge to make contact, I just wanted to touch him all the time but was constantly waiting for his go ahead.
“It’s not that. I can be around drunk people, Tuck.” Josh made the mistake of looking away from me, and he grumbled something under his breath like a little kid. “There’s just a lot of people…and not a lot of space.”
